SUNDAYS AT THE CALIFORNIA JAZZ CONSERVATORY (CJC)

The CJC, formerly the JAZZSCHOOL, and The San Francisco Early Music Society have established an exciting affiliation that delights both our audience and our local musicians. Early music lovers and jazz music lovers join together to celebrate the improvisational kinship of the two genres. CJC offers a casual and intimate environment where the audience can enjoy a light meal and sip a glass of wine or a cup of coffee while enjoying the concert.

All concerts begin at 4:30pm at the California Jazz Conservatory, 2087 Addison Street, Berkeley. Tickets are $20 (general admission) and go on sale for each concert approximately one month in advance. Their box office can be reached at 510-845-5373 or www.cjc.edu/concerts.

THE 2015–2016 SEASON CONCLUDES APRIL 17TH

Laudami Ensemble—Songs and Variations

Laudami Ensemble

Join the members of the Laudami ensemble as they showcase baroque improvisations inspired by the human voice. Examples include cantatas, divisions on popular songs, and highly ornamented melodies.

THE COMPLETE 2015–2016 SEASON LISTING

September 13
Albany Consort—Familiar Repertoire—Unusual Arrangements

Jonathan Salzedo

If there is one area where modern musicians have disregarded 18th-century practice, it is in reverence for the static score. Back in the day, music was constantly revised for new performances. But today, we invariably stay glued to those versions that history has preserved for us.

“I question that,” says the Albany Consort’s Jonathan Salzedo. “The idea of this program is to revitalize a very well-known work. This is nothing the do with the quality of the music, which is already the highest, hence its huge popularity, now as well as in its day. But at the time of writing, it was plagiarized, and I want to indulge in some plagiarization of my own.

The work is Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Vivaldi himself was a master of reuse, and my version of Winter reworks the concerto for the same chamber ensemble that Vivaldi frequently employed (recorder, oboe, violin, bassoon and continuo). Other composers reworked or extended this and other music by Vivaldi, and based on what I know, my re-workings of Spring, Summer and Autumn speculate what Bach, Rameau and Handel might have done with Vivaldi’s material.

We complete the program with a much loved Bach work most often performed as a concerto for violin, two recorders and strings (Brandenburg Concerto No 4). It is not so well known that Bach himself re-worked this piece, replacing the virtuoso violin part with a virtuoso harpsichord part. The harpsichord version is the version we will present.”

October 11
Musica Pacifica—Prelude to a Recording

Musica Pacifica

The world-renowned Bay Area baroque ensemble Musica Pacifica goes into the studio the day after this program to record a Paris Quartet by Telemann and a sonata by Giuseppe Sammartini. The group will perform these pieces, along with a concerto by Antonio Vivaldi. They also will discuss how the group approaches their work in the recording studio, emphasizing the differences in rehearsing for a live concert and a recording.

November 8
Katherine Heater, harpsichord—There and Bach

Katherine Heater

Katherine Heater, harpsichord, performs a solo recital of works by Johann Sebastian Bach, exploring the fantasy and the fugue, two of the compositional forms most closely linked to the great keyboard master’s renowned gifts of improvisation.

January 10Hallifax & Jeffrey with Lynn Tetenbaum, violas da gamba

Hallifax & Jeffrey with Tetenbaum

King Charles 1 loved the viol, and paid many great viol players to compose incredible music for his court . Maybe the greatest of those players was William Lawes, who together with John Coprario and Alfonso Ferrabosco formed the elite of the King’s “Private Musick”. Among other works, they all wrote spectacular fantasies for 3 “lyra” viols, that is, bass viols tuned in unusual ways. We have chosen the pieces that Lawes, Coprario, and Ferrabosco wrote in the tuning called “Eights”, an open tuning where the strings are all set to either F or C, giving the sound of the instruments an extra resonance. This concert reveals a very rare moment in the history of music for bowed strings, when the players’ considerable technical ability was matched by the richness of their invention.

March 20Euphora Project—Ávila: Musicians & Mystics of Sixteenth Century Spain

Amy White & Dominic Schaner

Through both new and ancient music, this program explores themes of contemplation grounded in repetitive musical forms, and mysticism and poetic vision illuminated through the art of improvisation. Using the writings of Teresa of Ávila (The Way of Perfection and The Interior Castle) and John of the Cross (Spiritual Canticle and Dark Night of the Soul) as genesis, this music seeks to divine a glimpse of poetry and mysticism through fleeting and free spirited improvisation, contemplative solos and dramatic songs, with quiet instrumental meditations and select recitations interspersed. The program features selections from the vihuela literature of the Golden Age of Spain, medieval music associated with contemplative pilgrimage and Marian devotion, and new music setting the mystical works of Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross in meditative solos and reflective songs.